


No Dinner Plans

by OldWomanJosie



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Gen, it's a jason derulo song guys, this ended up being more deep than i thought
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-27
Updated: 2017-07-27
Packaged: 2018-12-07 16:27:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 978
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11627376
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OldWomanJosie/pseuds/OldWomanJosie
Summary: A human, an elf, and a dwarf walk into a bar. They didn't come to make things rowdy, but when the band plays your song, you gotta dance.





	No Dinner Plans

A human, a dwarf, and an elf walk into a bar. They aren’t here for trouble (for a change), nothing rowdy or crazy. They’re here for a job. But as they pause in the doorway and look around, their contact doesn’t seem to have arrived.

They order their drinks anyway and choose a table closer to the back of the bar. They sip their drinks in companionable silence, enjoying the chance to catch a break for once. Adventuring is often not all it’s cracked up to be and having a relaxed night is a rare luxury.

There are a trio of bards in the opposite corner of the bar, providing musical accompaniment to the semi-full establishment. One is playing some kind of enchanted harpsichord-esque instrument, another plays a set of hide-covered drums, and the third is singing along over the noise of the crowd. There is some dancing, but no one is paying them much mind, least of all our three adventurers.

The human fighter looks down at his mug and finds it already empty. He mutters, “Nuts.”

His dwarven companion reaches over and snags away the empty cup. “No worries, I got it. Two more ciders, coming right up!” He bounces out of the booth and disappears into the crowd.

Just as he reaches the bar, the bards in the corner strike up a new tune. And as the first notes are plucked, they echo in the heart of Merle Highchurch. He knows that he has heard this song before, but the memory of where is just beyond his grasp, like a half-remembered dream. He glances at his companions, but neither are looking his way.

Nonetheless, he knows he must dance. Merle flings his arms out and begins to move to the music, weaving among the dancers around the bar gracefully. This dance is in his bones, the movements coming naturally to him as the song increases in tempo.

The elf wizard does not even look up from his cup as Merle begins to take the dance floor by storm. “He’s showing off again, isn’t he,” he says to the fighter beside him.

“Yep,” the human confirms. “And- Well, and now he’s on the bar.”

“Pan damn it.”

Merle has indeed climbed atop the bar. With hips shimmying and hands outstretched he dances the length of the bar. The women are charmed and the men are impressed by Merle’s incredible dancing prowess.

And as his friend listens, Magnus Burnsides finds that he too knows the song. As the second verse begins, he rises from his place at the table and wades into the crowd that Merle is drawing.

“Oh, not you too,” complains the wizard from where he has been left alone in the corner. The elf watches Magnus join Merle and takes a large drink of his unfortunately key-lime flavored cider. Let them make fools of themselves if they want, no way he was going out there.

Magnus has never been a dancer like Merle, but what he does have is rustic charm. He sweeps onto the dance floor and immediately every person around him wants a turn. He winks and twirls his way through the crowd, as if this were a barn raising and he the chief barn raiser.

Magnus does not know how he could know this song, he only knows that he does. Raising his eyes to Merle, still two-stepping atop the bar, he can see that his friend and traveling companion is having the same surreal experience.

It’s not as if this song is some deep ballad or stirring march. It is a silly little dance tune that is doubtless played in every tavern from here to the edges of the sea; however he knows the tune, Magnus is sure that these are not the right words. But it has some meaning, something else, something that he and Merle somehow share. And Taako-

He turns just as Taako Taaco stands up from the table. The elf wizard flings his hat dramatically back into their booth and descends to the dance floor. Like some ethereal creature, Taako clears a path before him by the sheer force of his confidence. If Merle is a performer and Magnus a charmer, Taako is a god, with full knowledge of the favor he is doing these people by participating in this petty dance.

And Taako knows the song, too. As he sat in the booth, studiously ignoring the commotion his friends were causing, the realization that this song was so familiar was rising in him. And as he steps onto the floor and does his turn, pivoting around the floor with a dervish’s grace, the beat of the song seems to answer a question inside him he did not even know he was asking.

Merle leaps from the bar to join his friends on the floor and together they hip pop and hand jive through the final chorus. Magnus is laughing, enjoying the hell out of this silly fun with his traveling buddies. Taako smiles as he adds far more flourish than necessary to every move that he makes, just because he can. Merle is lost in the dance, not that it is a deep and meaningful dance, but that it is a dance with friends.

The whole bar is rocking by now and the bards play the chorus again as an encore, playing out the three adventurers as they finish out their dances. They laugh with each other and clasp each others’ arms as if to say, ‘do you feel that? What is that?’

But before they are even able to begin to put words to their experience, a throat clears from behind them. A stout dwarven man is standing behind the trio, arms akimbo. “This is low-key for you guys?” Gundren Rockseeker grumbles, shaking his head. “Come on, boys. We have a job to do.”

**Author's Note:**

> You know how sometimes you hear a song at the same time that you see something else and you start associating that song with that thing for no reason? Yeah, that's TAZ and Swalla by Jason Derulo. I'm making a fanmix too but I wanted to try to get the scene in my head on paper. Not that this turned out at all the way I thought, but hey.


End file.
